Reflection/Magnification

Artist Statement

I wanted this image to focus on reflection because I had tried to capture a reflection-based photo for a few other projects, but was unable to find the right setting or camera angle. I had a nice, small mirror lying around in my room, so I decided to change my approach and use that instead of a larger mirror on the wall. I held it out in front of me with one hand and angled my camera as well as the mirror so I captured both the background and my face in the reflection—while still including the fairly plain background outside of it. While taking the photo, I attempted to apply the rule of thirds to emphasize the mirror and the subject inside the mirror. Later, I did this more effectively by cropping the image, as there was a lot of space above the mirror/my hand that was distracting.

For editing, I wanted to try a similar strategy as I had used in my portrait assignment, where I applied some filters to the image then layered the original image over itself again. Then, I would erase the space inside the mirror in order to apply the effects to the reflection only. I applied the film grain, texturizer, diffuse glow, and glass filters on the first background layer image (what would appear inside the mirror), but it looked a little too distracting. Therefore, I tried to play around with those effects until they were visibly different but not obscuring the subjects inside the reflection. On the second layer, where I had erased the space inside the mirror and changed the opacity to about 80%, I applied the watercolor filter with very light shadows so it would match more with the layer beneath it. After that, I layered the image over itself again in a third layer, placing this layer at 50% opacity so that although the effects of the layers below it were visible, they weren’t as overwhelming. I moved the image from photoshop into photos and made a few more edits: I decreased the black point, decreased the exposure, and increased the brightness slightly. I also used the select color feature to increase the saturation of red, blue, and yellow. Finally, I used the vignette feature to increase the strength, the radius, and the softness of the effect.

This image connects to my personal concentration of portraying literary devices through photography, like the majority of the images I create. This one was meant to relate to antithesis, where there is an opposition or contrast of ideas/words. In the reflection of the mirror, the subject has a completely different background than the one shown in the rest of the image, and stands out with the different filters and the different background in comparison. Therefore, there is contrast shown with the part of the image inside the reflection (the background has more color and detail) and the rest of the image (with a more plain background and a different texture). I like the way the reflection allowed for two separate “settings” and “moods” to appear in the same image without the use of too much photo editing.